


looked at you too long at last

by orphan_account



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: AND DJDJDJSJ GRABBING, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hook-Up, I mean it kinda is, IDK IF THIS IS ACTUALLY SMUR OR NOT IRS MORE LIKE MAKING OUT, Love Confessions, M/M, Panic Attacks, REMINDER THERE IS VAGUE SMUT IN HERE ITS REALLY VAGUE AND NOT THAT DESCRIPTIVE, Slow Burn, also i wanted to expand on mako's back story a bit, and how he would hate being a firebender, idk - Freeform, it's really vague and done p o e t i c a l l y bc i cant write smutaoiasoidjas, not edited or proofread we die like men, omg my mind is so big brain, vague smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-17
Updated: 2020-09-17
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:20:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26509639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: There was this boy that Mako saw across the street with green eyes and brown skin that made his chest feel all sorts of funny. Now here he is, in front of him as Mako has to bodyguard him. But the first time it happens, they just did it to release tension. Nothing more, nothing less.Right?This is all a joke. This is just a hookup for Wu. They both know it. If they ever chase more than glances, they will collapse into a sea of the unknown and disappointment. Suddenly the warmth, the closeness and the sweet nothings is all gone, replaced with a numbness that sits in Mako’s stomach, a bottomless pit.They will keep doing this. But they will just tip at the very edge. They won’t cross that border. This will just be a hookup and nothing more. Mako will have to be okay with that.inspired bythis song
Relationships: Mako/Prince Wu (Avatar)
Comments: 13
Kudos: 90





	1. i am a poor fool

**Author's Note:**

> oijoijoijoij THIS IS SO BAD OMG IM SO SORRY IJOAISJDOAIJ
> 
> kudos comments and feedback is appreciated

It’s cold. Really cold in the long, winter nights of Republic city. Mako huddled close to Bolin while he wrapped the red scarf around them. He glided his finger across the scarf that looked like dark red in the night. He felt every stitch, every bump, every fibre and every yarn because this was the remnants of their parents aside from the picture tucked into his coat, hidden away, only for softer moments. 

“I’m hungry,” Bolin mumbled, clouds of smoke came from his lips that shivered. The move closer to the wall of the alleyway, which was dark, all trash and garbage, no one will look for them here.

They are just two orphans out in the streets. Nothing more. Nothing less.

Mako doesn’t like to firebend. It’s a reminder. A sign of what killed their parents and left them out in the streets. He almost cried, when he made a small fire from the garbage in the trash can, reminiscence of the violence from the firebender that stripped away him and his brother’s chance to live in a happy home in a happy life.

The fire painted their faces in oranges and reds, their skin glowed with warmth. He looked towards Bolin, and looked at the fire like it was something magical, something out of a fairytale book that his mum used to read to them. Bolin looked at it like it reminded him of home, warmth, shelter, soft blankets and the fireplace in their very home.

That’s not what fire is. Fire hungers and takes and takes what it can until there’s nothing left. Fire is dangerous. Fire is bad, Fire gave them tears and memories that felt like scars to mere  _ children _ . Fire is greedy. Fire is the shape of someone who wore a dark cloak and a mellow smile as they stole from their jewellery box, all giddy.

Fire is bad. He hates firebending.

He clutched the scarf close to him, he gripped it tight, knuckles turned white. The scarf didn’t look dark, deep red like blood. Instead it looked warm, soft, like the red baubles of the christmas tree that they hung during christmas. 

“I’m hungry Mako…” Bolin whined while he held out his hand towards the fire. He said it like nothing has changed. Like they could just take snacks from the drawer of their house anytime they could. 

“I’m hungry too, Bolin.”

Bolin stared at the fire, eyes reflected the warmth, the red and the oranges. Mako is older. Mako is tough and strong and will never back down and cry. He saw his parents get killed in front of him with a big swoop of fire. Mako was the one that got his brother out of bed, got his dad’s scarf, a few coins and ran through the backdoor.

Bolin didn’t look terrified. He looked like a normal kid. His eyes held hope within the glow of the fire. He could still love and cry and live and laugh. Mako cannot, it’s been cut off when they left. Bolin is still intact, still secure. And he’ll keep it that way. Mako will cut off his own childhood and his very ability to feel just for Bolin.

Because he’s older. 

He let the flame dance from his palm and made himself stare at it. Made him look at the flame and think of home, think of the fireplace and warmth and christmas.

But it just took him back a month ago when it all started.

He bit his lip, didn’t care that it his teeth cut into his lip and made it bled. He can’t cry. Not anymore.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


After a year. They got into a rhythm, a plan to keep themselves alive. They know the streets like the back of their hands. They know the places that they need to avoid in the day, the alleyways full of low-life thieves. The areas switched during the night, and the amateur thieves get taken over by thugs, henchmen from big gangs and tall people with dragon tattoos and people who could do really weird moves.

Their streets are their playground, their home. It’s familiar to them. They’re both thirteen now, and Bolin still smiled and laughed while Mako hid his face into his scarf. They kept the both of them safe and did what he had to, even if he had to cut off what it felt like to be human, to be a thirteen year old kid. He only got a bit of childhood, through the classroom when he stared out of the window and when he met the gaze of a certain boy.

Then, it’s gone. No more school and no more of that boy who could waterbend, who threw snowballs at Mako when it snowed.

It was late in the afternoon, and they had a plan to get some food in their stomach. Just accidentally walked into an old lady who went shopping, her arms full of groceries. Mako would walk in front of her and during the chaos, he would take what he could. It didn’t matter if it was a stick of butter or noodles, or a loaf of bread. Whatever they could eat they ate.

And he would put on his usual, soft childish smile and make tears fall out of his eyes that he has mastered for extra pity points when he helped her. Some lashed out and scoffed and kept going. Others just ignored him. There were rare times when they would crouch, and smiled at Mako while they wiped away the tears so gently that it reminded him of his mother's touch.

This time, they got fire flakes and a loaf of bread. Bolin’s face lit up, giddy that they can eat. 

“We didn’t eat yesterday!”

“I know,” Mako mumbled, he tore into the loaf of bread, careful to let the flavour sit on his tongue, to take his time as he chewed. He doesn’t know when they the next meal will be, the future is uncertain.

  
  
  
  
  
  


Fire bending reminded him of that man.

But when Bolin looked at the fire on his palm, his face lit up.

So he’ll try his best to erase that man in his head, turn that inferno that raged in his very depths, that he locked away and turn it into the heat, into the kick that blazed with thick fire. He’ll let that emotion go out of that box and turn it into something he can fight with.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


Something clicked in Mako’s stone cold core that lit him up, it started from a spark, then it ignited into a wildfire that spreaded through his whole chest. Mako looked at him for too long at the other end of the street. It’s hit fault really. He felt himself fell apart, when he stared at the boy who was being ushered with his parents. 

Those emerald eyes reminded him of his mother’s dress. So sparkly and so deep. But there’s something else, something that ignited this weird  _ warmth  _ that is so terrifying and new to him that he doesn’t want. Maybe it’s the way he smiled, or how his skin glowed in the sunlight, a deep soft brown. It’s strange. He doesn’t want these feelings.

So when the boy locked his eyes and had the audacity to held his gaze for just a moment, just for a second that it was way  _ too  _ long. He ran. He ran as fast as he could because if he is just a child, he is just a kid and he shouldn’t feel this… warmth that spreaded throughout him when he looked at him.

Mako reminded himself to lock it under a cage. No time for feelings.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


This is good. This is fine. They got somewhere. Just collect the bets on the fights and do the dirty work for the Triple Threat. It’s been three months since they’ve joined, and they’re slowly racked in enough money that they could at least eat once a day (and to feed pabu, Bolin’s soft heart couldn’t just leave that poor thing)

  
For the first time, Mako can breathe for a moment. His thoughts aren't full of whether or not they’ll make it through the week or if they have enough money. He can stop. He can think. He can breathe.

  
Except his mind raced back to the night and he made a sound like he ran out of air, oxygen being sucked out of his very lungs. It’s a scary and terrifying thing that he felt that time, just after the sunset and dusk took over and coated everything in a blue hue.

He collapsed to the ground, gripped the wall and he felt like he couldn’t breathe. This was it. Because all he could think about was that man that took everything away from him and now his body brimmed with heat, brimmed with the very fires that killed  _ everything  _ that he had and--

_ That boy. _

_ That boy with emerald eyes comes back _

And suddenly he could breathe again.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


“I’m sorry that I can’t be stone hearted like you Mako!”

“Stop being so soft Bolin!”

“Why are you like this?”

“Why are  _ you _ like this Mako? It’s like… it’s like all you feel is anger all the time!”

Silence. It puslated all around them. Around the gym walls it echoed, remnants of what they did a few moments ago, they laughed and bantered while they practised for their upcoming round. Now Bolin looked at him like he was something else. No longer a brother but instead something  _ feral  _ and terrifying, a predator full of hate and anger.

_ He went to that moment in the street. Back when he saw that boy. That boy with eyes just like the dress his mother wore. That boy with eyes just like the green grass on his lawn, where Bolin would be while Mako stared at him with a smile. He didn’t know that boy's name. If he did. He would whisper it so many times under his breath that it’ll become a habit, or maybe a lucky charm. _

He’s not stone cold… right?

“I had to do everything in me to keep the both of us alive Bolin! So don’t you  _ dare  _ tell me that I’m cold hearted.”

He kicked the sand bag so hard that it broke off the hinges.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


Emerald eyes.

He thought that if he ever had a chance to look at those eyes again, he would ruin him.

No more emerald eyes of his. He dug it deep into the earth and left it there to rot.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


He couldn’t breathe when he locked eyes with Asami.

It was like his skin was on fire and she was right there in front of him when she took off her helmet and flipped her hair. It was like she was a goddess in front of him, something that came from the very clouds, something that came from the very heavens and there she was, alive.

When their skin touched, it was like she left a trail of fire along his skin. 

“I’ll see you tomorrow night,” Mako said, he had to force himself to not smile like an idiot.

He watched her drive off. 

He realised that he was going on a date. On a date. An actual date. He’s never been on a date before.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


He should’ve said something else to Korra when they first met at Pro-Bending. He was stone cold and he was heartless. Probably from all the time that he and Bolin spent out in the street, to go heartless and stand in front to keep Bolin’s emotions in check, to throw away his own to save his brother.

His feelings are a mess. A bunch of wires. All trapped and he’s just about to dig up the bits that he can handle. Just small parts. Not the rest.

_ Not those emerald eyes _

“But I’ve been feeling really confused and--”

  
She cut him off with a kiss.

And it’s sudden. So sudden that his mind is just static for a split of a second until he melted into it and it felt so  _ good _ . This touch. This warmth that spreads throughout his cheek is something that is so, so, so addictive.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


But the weird, love triangle is gone and what is left is ashes of friendship that Mako held in his hands. It’s still weird to be around Korra and Asami. It’s strange, to look at both of them and know that the three of them have this strange history, that they dated each other. He still doesn’t know how to act when they’re close, he kinda malfunctioned.

They’ll work. They’ll find out how they can fit together like friends. The spark was there and the warmth that bloomed in his chest was there, but it was fleeting, quick, it burned out like the candles he blew out in the middle of the night. He thought that it was better. For the three of them to be friends. 

Yeah. It’s better for them to be friends. Nothing more and nothing less.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


“You’ll be assigned to bodyguard Prince Wu of Ba Sing Se until coronation day.”

Mako almost dropped his paperwork.

“What?”

Beifong sighed, “I’m sorry kid but everyone else is full around the job.”

“You have to be kidding me, how long?”   
  
She gave him a sympathetic look, “it’s final, he’s coming to Republic City in a few weeks.”   
  
“Spirits…”

  
She patted him in the back, “sorry kid.”

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


When he locked eyes, it took for a second. Suddenly feelings and emotions seem to unearth themselves from the ground up and it takes over his view. It’s him. It’s that boy that he saw when he was a kid with deep brown skin and eyes like the grass, like the forest, like the expensive emeralds that his mother always wished she had.

The unopened emotions and secrets he hid is now out in the open. It’s over stimulating and too much, and it’s honestly  _ terrifying  _ for him. He hasn’t felt this much in such a long time that he thought that he would die, that he would light himself on fire. He would burn himself from how colourful and vibrant Wu is, and how all of this would eat him alive.

Like the fire the man wielded. It hungered. It took and took and it took until nothing was left.

  
“Hey…” Wu said. He didn’t wear the green suit and the yellow scarf that he saw in the photos. He looked tired and miserable, with eyebags that dragged under his eyes and he looked like he cried just before he got here, eyes puffy and tired. His sweats matched, a dull grey colour with stains on his hoodie.

“Prince Wu,” he said, “I’ll be your bodyguard until your coronation day.”

“Oh,” he looked at Mako for a moment, he waited for the realisation, that he was the kid that he saw across the street.

  
  
  
  
  
  


But it didn't come.

The staff with Wu while he tagged behind, hands behind his back. He had a lot of suitcases, filled with priceless suits and jewellery. He wasn't like that boy before. He’s all grown up. No longer a mere child with his parents out on Republic City for a vacation. There isn’t that spark, that innocence and that joy when they locked eyes before.

Instead there’s dread in them.

Once they reached Wu’s room in the hotel he collapsed on the sofa. Mako stood there, he didn’t know what to do. That boy he saw is all grown up and is quiet. 

“Are you okay Prince Wu?”

“Don’t call me Prince Wu just call me Wu.”

  
“Alright,” he paused before he continued, “Wu,” he let it roll out of his tongue, tested the name. Wu. That boy he saw across the street. He has a name. Wu.

“I’m just tired, and stressed, and sad. Give me a week and I’ll be fine,” Wu said with a groan. The staff left a few minutes ago and set up and folded all of Wu’s clothes. The hotel room is too pristine and rich, with gold embroidery and expensive wine on the glass drawer. Air is stuffy with expensive perfume, it smelled of factory cherry blossoms that made Mako’s nose hurt.

Silence fell between them. He walked to his own bedroom and set his own suitcase down on the bed. Mako’s confused and terrified and his heart is like a rusty thing that hasn’t been on in a while as it fluttered.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


_ When Wu looked at the boy from the other end of the street, something stirred in him, like an itch that’s finally relieved inside. He liked his eyes, warm and soft. Kind of like the campfire back home, which is where he spent all his time in front of. The warmth painted his skin in red hues and if he closed his eyes and imagined hard enough, he can pretend that he’s in the beach with the sun on his skin, outside with friends. _

_ They held each other’s gaze. _

_ And after a few moments later, he saw the boy run away. _

_ “Come on Wu were gonna be late for the play.” _

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


Wu is sweaty and gross and tired when they get out of the bar. He let Wu lean against him as they walk out, the smell of booze is strong clung to Wu’s clothes. He just watched Wu flirt with a bunch of girls, with sweat and bodies close together. He watched him from afar, he stared at him for way too long than he would’ve liked and he felt the spark of jealousy when a girl with pretty blue eyes talked to Wu in such sweet words.

He didn’t know why he was jealous. He shouldn’t be jealous. Wu can do whatever he wanted

“Mako…carry me,” he said when they get out of the Satomobile. 

“I’ll rather die.”

“Mako! You’re supposed to be my bodyguard!”

“Carrying is above my payroll.”

“I hate you.”

He knew that Wu was drunk. That he wasn’t thinking clearly. But there’s this pinch inside him that sinks at the very bottom of his stomach. They get to the elevator and now Wu has put all of his weight onto him, he isn’t heavy, but there’s something about how Wu’s skin is so warm from the bar, how close he is.

He can’t think of that. He shouldn’t chase the feeling that he felt.

The elevator door opens and there’s this silence between them that they share. Wu sat on the floor, knees pressed close to his chest.

“Sit with me buddy,” Wu whined, Mako followed. 

And when they locked eyes his stomach does something so strange, so foreign. Stronger than what he felt than Asami and Korra. It is addictive. It is something that took over him in that elevator when they locked eyes, a quiet intimacy that both of them shared. Everything blurred all around them, and Mako realised how close they are and how it’s both scary and thrilling to be so close to him.

Wu stared at his lips then back at him, but he giggled and said, “you look… familiar.”

The elevator door opened and everything was broken. Wu is drunk. Mako isn’t. That moment that they shared meant nothing, even if it held unsaid words and a tense silence that he wanted to spill what he felt into. To let all this secret that he held, to spill it into the very person that he trusted even though he only knew him through a stare when he was just a mere child, when he finally met him and it’s only been a day or two.

“I do?” Mako asked, he helped Wu get up. He let him lean against him when they walked towards the hotel room.

But Wu didn’t say anything else. Mako realised that he’s fallen asleep against him. He sighed, and he carried him all the way to his bed. When they got to Wu’s bedroom he took off his shoes so carefully, he let his finger glide across his smooth ankles that Wu probably spent so much time exfoliating. 

“Don’t think about him,” Mako grumbled, and he put the shoes carefully on the ground next to the bed, tucked him into the blankets. He didn’t look at him on the way out. He didn’t. 

  
  
  
  
  
  


_ He didn’t tell his parents why he felt warmth spread throughout his chest when he looked at the boy in his class. It was strange, when he saw that boy waterbend. He turned the muddy puddle into a dirty snowball as he threw it at Mako. Everything in him wanted to go back at that moment, where all he felt was confusion on why this boy, this waterbender made him feel things. _

_ He had those blue eyes that went deeper than the very oceans itself. Sapphire eyes. Amber eyes. Fire and water. _

  
  
  
  
  


It’s been a while since he worked out. He does it when he’s frustrated, and wants to get the frustration out. The anger all the stiffness out of his limbs, and into fiery kicks that was like an extension of his body. Sweat dripped from his forehead when his fist collided with the sandbag, felt it sink under his own weight. 

He pulled the fire, the inferno just at the last minute of that fist. Because something flipped his mind that was the face of the man that took everything from him. The firebender. The fire that took  _ everything  _ and left nothing, that tossed them out into the streets and left them to fend for themselves. 

Fire is destructive and greedy and he  _ hated  _ being a firebender.

He didn’t mean to let the fire come out of him. But it did, it lashed out like a flame from his kick that left an ugly, black scorch mark against the red of the sandbag. He panted, the anger, the fury, the inferno still burned inside him and that man will forever be inside him. That face. That cloak. 

_ Will he be like that someday? _

He sat on the ground, the towel hung from his neck. His breathed ragged and frantic and scattered and his limb shook with anger, fury. Anger at that man that took everything from him and more. That man. If Mako saw that man in the street he will make him feel what he felt. He’ll let the fire scorch the skin, a reminder of how it felt to lose everything. It’ll be slow. It’ll be painful--

“Mako.”

He turned around. Wu is there, with his stupid green suit.

“I’m sorry did I wake you?” Mako stood up, his tank top clung to his skin from his chest. He pretended to not notice how Wu’s eyes lingered on his chest for just a bit too long.

“No I just… you just look familiar,” he paused for a moment and walked towards Mako, he held his breath and wished that he realised that he was that boy from across the street, but instead he said, “you were a firebender!”

Mako forced a smile, “yeah I was…”

He remembered how he and Bolin always loved pro-bending before Toza introduced them to the ring. They sat there in the living room on the floor while the radio blared, it echoed. Bolin always screamed and jumped when the earthbenders did something cool, he even acted out the actions, the way they would throw out the heavy disks.

And Mako would just sit there and stare and stare, watched his brother do a kick. 

He wanted it all back.

But it’s a long time ago. It’s etched into history and the photos that all fell to the ground, glass shattered. He can’t go back to the past. He wished he could.

“Yeah… I was at the fire ferrets.”   
  
“And Korra played with you guys too,” Wu beamed, he put his arm around Mako’s neck which was sticky with sweat and from the towel, “that was so cool! Why didn’t you tell me!”

“It’s in the past so…” 

Wu sighed, he led them out of the gym, “come on, we’re going shopping.”

“Again?”

“Come on pal! Nothing like two guys out in the mall like buddies.”

Buddies.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


He felt those glances from Wu. Just across the room. It started to last for just a split of a second. Then it turned into just a second, a second too long that Mako noticed it. It was a glance that lingered for way too long that when Mako returned the gaze, Wu was doing something else or looked at something else. 

It grew and it happened so many times that Mako lost count. Those glances always went from his eyes all to his lips. He noticed it. He noticed how Wu looked at him and it was strange. Across the ballroom. Across the bar. Across the mall. Across the hotel room when Mako made coffee for himself which Wu always commented on. 

He can’t chase that glance.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


But Wu chased that glance.

It was late when the two of them got home, another pointless shopping trip to fill the time in Republic City. Mako dropped all of the bags onto the couch and Wu went to the cabinet and poured a drink for him and Mako. There’s something the way that he poured the amber coloured booze, it was slow to fill the time.

“I’m not drinking,” Mako mumbled, he sat on the couch with all the pointless clothes in front of him. He doesn’t get why Wu does this, but when he looked behind his back there’s a spark in Wu’s eyes that he couldn’t quiet read, something that was deep. Was he just a spoiled prince, or was there something deep in those green eyes?

Mako turned back to look at the carpet beneath his feet.

“Relax, it’s not that strong. I promise just one drink,” Wu said. He heard him go into his bedroom, the door open with the sound of clothes being taken off. He came out of the door with an oversized T-shirt and sweatpants. He took both of the glasses and placed it on the coffee table in front of them before he sat on the sofa. There’s a distance between them that felt sort of wrong, too long yet too short. 

The distance was full of uncertain silence. Too many unsaid words that Mako can’t figure out the meaning of.

“Just one drink,” he sighed. Wu replied with a cheer.

It didn’t burn the back of his throat and he didn’t feel the heat take over his whole tongue. It was smooth and soft, it tasted of something woody, cinnamon. He placed the empty glass back down on the coffee table, his cheeks flushed from the warmth of the booze. His eyes drifted off Wu, who swirled the drink in his hand so gently. Mako watched his lip wrap around the top of the glass.

He drank it slow. Slower than him. There was something about he sighed afterwards, like the relief from Wu’s shoulders suddenly gave out. 

“That was so good,” Wu said with a laugh, and the tension between them changed into something else. Something that was hazy and easy to get into, like they knew each other their whole lives, like they fell into a soft balance of conversations and Mako isn’t just a bodyguard and Wu isn’t just a spoiled prince.

“--And then Mako man! She looked at me all giddy in the club.”

  
“Uhuh,” Mako sighed, though he secretly enjoyed this. He liked how Wu’s voice filled the emptiness of them. Wu shifted closer to Mako and put his arm around his neck, his breath warm from the expensive beer. Mako is used to this. How Wu is so touchy all the time.

“I think she liked me.”

“You sure?”   
  


_ Look at him like how you looked at her, Wu. Look at him with your eyes that sparkled like the very emeralds deep in the earth. Look at him. Hold his gaze. Even for just more than a second that it’s enough.  _

They are so close together and so  _ warm _ . 

“I think she did,” Wu said, barely above a whisper. They held each other’s gaze for more than a second, and everything inside Mako bloomed like flowers. The shackled. The locked box bursted and overfilled  _ everything  _ inside him like a dam that broke. He is something that is rare that Mako hasn’t felt in his lonely years after Korra and Asami.

Ten inches. Ten inches away from their lips. 

Wu was the one that closed the gap. Mako’s head was filled with static and it took him a while to realise that Wu’s lips were against him. It’s soft, and he can taste the cinnamon, the wood on his lips. He chased that feeling, to drink more of Wu in as he straddled on his lap. 

Mako and Wu weren't thinking. They didn’t think of the aftermath of this poor decision that they could blame on the drink even though they weren’t drunk, a poor excuse to hide behind. He liked how he hasted. So Mako took a greedy handful, his arm beneath Wu’s hoodie, Wu’s shirt.

It left behind a trail of fire, heat. He’s thought about this for so long, Wu on his thoughts during bodyguarding when Wu looked away and he found his eyes on Wu, traced the very outline of his body, his hair, and how it was curly with no pomade or no gel. But he knew that this moment, this was fleeting.

But he rushed this. Mako rushed this because he knows this will all end in chaos.

They’re both so warm and so hot that Mako hasn’t realised the way that Wu’s breath is hot against his ear, and how Wu explored his chest, which snaked under his pants. It’s like he wanted this to end quickly, to forget about it all in the morning. He bit his lip and went along, because this is just them hooking up, pent up frustrations and anger.

Nothing more, nothing less.

But they fit so well together as Mako gasped, into the crook of Wu’s shoulder. He liked how Wu made him feel good, through the way he sped up, hand under his underwear. This is something completely new and Mako is just testing the waters, and he wanted to dive deeper, to explore more and more. 

Wu sped up and they held each other’s gaze. There’s something in Mako’s eyes that wanted more, while Wu just saw it as a pointless hookup. Mako hungered, he wanted more of as his mouth opened to a gasp, murmured a curse that the both of them could hear. They share heat. They share a warmth so close, a quiet intimacy covered up by pleasure and a hookup.

It all comes and everything stops. It’s like the wave that crashed into the beach, and it overlapped with the sand, took some of precious things that was left behind in the beach, his heart, his emotions, the sweet murmurs that Wu said in his ear all hot that made the hair in the back of his neck stand up. But it didn’t take the promises of late night cuddles and a future.

“Fuck,” Wu said with a laugh. This is all a joke. This is just a hookup for Wu. They both know it. If they ever chase more than glances, they will collapse into a sea of the unknown and disappointment. Suddenly the warmth, the closeness and the sweet nothings is all gone, replaced with a numbness that sits in Mako’s stomach, a bottomless pit.

They will keep doing this. But they will just tip at the very edge. They won’t cross that border. This will just be a hookup and nothing more. Mako will have to be okay with that.


	2. who loved too much

“Mako?” Wu whispered as they pulled apart. Mako had to stop his imagination, to not hear that whisper outside of just pleasure.

“Yeah?”

“This is just temporary, you know?”

“I know we’re just… hooking up.”

“Glad we’re on the same page,” Wu said. When they went back to the hotel room, Mako was quiet. He didn’t sleep well that night.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


He had so many words but didn’t say when their bodies clashed together when they touched, like how the coal and water met. Mako’s touches were parts of unsaid words, of things he wanted more of but couldn’t have outside of these walls. Wu’s touches were just about chasing the pleasure, greedy, like how he gripped Mako’s hair when he goes down or how they press close to each other to stave off the cold of the night.

But after that, nothing more, nothing less. No strings attached. That’s what they promised each other. The morning after that, Wu acted like nothing happened, but still touchy, always seeked out Mako through simple gestures like a hand slung around his neck or how he pulled Mako through the malls.

It’s like a pointless adventure. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


They arrive at a museum, awfully empty. Their footsteps echoed and it haunted Mako when he looked around, all marble, pristine and shiny. He felt out of his league, like he shouldn’t be here with his guard outfit. The Earth kingdom museum in Republic city, filled with ancient texts and rusty statues made from clay and dirt. 

“You paid the owner to keep everyone out just for you?” Mako asked, he put his hand behind his back.

“ _ Us _ , Mako,” he said, and Mako had to bite down his tongue, “it didn’t take much cash though.”

“Why?”

“Because I wanted too,” Wu hummed, something in Mako knew that Wu wanted to say more, but he walked past Mako and looked at the displays in tempered glass that not even his own fire bending can melt through. The sunlight streamed through the roof and Mako looked up, the ceiling itself was stained glass, it coloured the whole giant room that was so big and so high in different hues.

It depicted two people, intertwined with each other while they held each other’s gaze so intently while the background showed an ugly mass of rioters with torches. Mako doesn’t know what it meant.

“Do you know about the turtles?” Wu asked. Mako found him near the walls, his hand touched the rough surface.

“Yeah the four lion turtles,” he walked towards Wu.

“But after the lion turtles did you know the history of the two kings?”

“The two kings?”

  
Wu turned and looked up to the ceiling. Mako didn’t look up. He traced the statue made of rough stone, moss clinged to the spear and the shield of the man. There was no face, it had long faded by the shifts of time and all that's left is an outline of his head. A thought rushed to him, will he be like that statue, faceless, a mere memory in Wu? Just another stranger after all of  _ this  _ is over?

“The two kings during the end of the warring states period,” there was another statue near the warrior, and it was an earthbender, the muscles carefully carved like it was from mountains itself, moss clung to his face, it left it faceless, a mere page in the history books, “there was a king who rose to power, it’s one of the forgotten kings. He gave the Earth Kingdom a time of peace and prosperity and stayed neutral in all of the fizzling conflict.”

“What do you mean forgotten king?” Mako looked back to Wu who stared at the ceiling, the stained glass bathed him in so many colours, reds and yellows and blues and so much more.

“You won’t find it in the history books because they’ve burned it all down. This is the only place where there’s any bit of history about the two kings.”

“Why?”   
  


“The Earth Kingdom refused to believe that there were two men who loved each other and took hold of the kingdom.

_ “Oh _ .”

Wu looked at him for a moment but tore his gaze like he was terrified of something. He instead walked through the displays, away from Mako.

“His name was Haku, the earthbending king. His lover was Kon, a secret lover on the side who was his advisor and a skilled warrior. They knew each other when they were mere teenagers, and when they were close. They kept it a secret, it was punishable by death.”

“The citizens found out?”   
  


Wu stopped by a display, it was two rings. The gem dug from the deepest parts of the earth to get the beautiful display of emeralds that run deep, intricately cut. The other ring was an amber colour, it looked golden, like a pool of warm honey as light hit it. 

“After five years. They ran and fought for so long but they eventually died.”

The silence between them is loud, filled with hushed secrets that Mako can’t understand. He missed comfortable silence, not these moments where it’s all hushed, quiet, where you could whisper a secret and not know how it would land. 

“Why are you telling me this?” Mako said.

“Because I thought you should know.”

“Because you  _ thought  _ that  _ I  _ should know?” Mako felt like he should laugh, but it doesn’t come out. There was something at the brink of his tongue. They push and pull but never go beyond the edge, terrified of what’s beyond. 

Wu shattered the tenseness with a laugh. The moment of vulnerability and secrets is gone and now Wu is back to the spoiled prince, he walked up to Mako and patted him in the back like the silence they just shared didn’t mean anything, that Wu wasn’t telling Mako anything. They left the museum and it's a phantom reminder of something they could’ve had if either of them.

  
  
  
  
  
  


They push and pull like the tides. They somehow find each other when they’re either lonely, tense or bored in the middle of night. Either Mako or Wu who climbed onto the bed and they’ll tangle up in each other with sweat. This time it was Wu who was lonely that night, and he murmured a soft curse against Mako’s ear which sent an electric shock across his spine.

Wu sat himself on Mako’s lap, and he looked so beautiful that Mako had to pause, and see the moonlight on his skin, a soft, blue hue like his father’s tie.

“Mako?”

_ Mako _ .

He liked how he said it. So needy and so shaky. He ran his tongue down his chest, pressed kisses along until it came down to Wu’s waist. He paused, let his breath tickle his skin. Mako held him tight because once Wu leaves there will be nothing, so he will grip him hard and it'll be a bruise in the morning, a ghostly touch of what they did in the night.

“You’re too good to me,” he whispered into Wu’s skin, and he hoped that it’ll be imprinted into his skin, a tattoo, a reminder of something that only happens in the bed and nothing more. He will regret it in the future, or maybe tomorrow when he sees the hickeys in the morning. But he pushed to the side. If this is what Wu can give him and nothing more, he’ll take it. He’ll take scraps. He’ll take what he can get and he’ll have to be content with it.

Mako lowered his head and he received a gasp from Wu.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


“You know Mako you should probably pick up a sweet girl. You’re handsome enough.”

He doesn’t want to. He wants  _ him _ . Him and nothing more. He is a foolish man that has the heart that can love all but is suppressed all under a lock, because he had to be stone cold to get through life.

But Wu doesn’t do that. He only seeked him out for pleasure.

“I’m good, I’m rusty.”

“Fine by me, more for me to choose from.”

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


_ “Mako? What’s wrong?” _

_   
_ _ “Nothing Bolin I saw… I saw someone.” _ _   
_ _   
_ _ A boy with emerald eyes. _

_ “Who was it?”  _

_ “It was no one. We should go and get the bets for tonight.” _

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


They are going to get caught in the bathroom stall if they don’t keep it down.

But he let himself drown in Wu’s mouth. He wanted more of him and to drink him in. He let his hand roam underneath his shirt, his hand warm under Wu’s clothes, he . 

“We’re gonna have to keep it quiet,” he murmured.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


Korra is gone and anxiety trembled throughout his body. When he got back to the hotel, he sat on the floor of his room with all the lights off and cried, silent sobs that came out all wretched and ugly. He can’t breathe. His lungs tried to hard to get the air in but he can’t and everything closed around him and suddenly he’s just a mere child again--

“Mako…”

His breaths steadied out just a little bit. He focused just a little bit more. Wu sat beside him and he found his hand and held it tightly like he was going to leave, like Mako was going to go if he didn’t hold him hard enough.

“It’s Korra she…”

“I know,” Wu whispered, “we’ll find her.”

Wu isn’t like how he is when they grabbed onto each other in the bed. This time he’s gentle and slow, he tested the boundary as he made his hand up, snaked it all the way to Mako’s elbow. It’s something that Mako hasn't felt, the quiet touches that were loud in affection, so soft.

Then everything clicked and Mako realised he hasn’t been touched like this in a while, gentle and soft like his mother’s hugs. It all broke, everything spilled and he found himself in Wu’s arms while he sobbed. He’s terrified. Terrified for Korra and the future and him and Wu. He knows that him and Wu are just there to release tension.

But the quiet touches made him want to imagine something else with him. Is it bad idea to dream of something he can’t have?

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


After that, the greedy nights stopped and there were more gentle touches that sparked so many things. Wu started it first, and Mako just followed. It all occurred within these walls, and nothing more. He’ll have this. Wu gave him more and he’ll have this and nothing more. He’ll have Wu in the middle of the night while the moonlight streamed and bathed him in soft hues, his hair fell into soft curls as he walked into the kitchen to get something.

He’ll have Wu, who laughed so hard when Mako cracked a joke he didn’t mean to and his eyes crinkled and he thought he was gonna die from this feeling. It overflowed and now he drowned in this combustion of emotions and feelings, coloured saturated. This is bad idea. They will burst into flames.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


“What are we Wu?”

  
“What do you mean?”

“ _ Us, _ ” he whispered,  _ “ _ what are we?”

“I don’t know,” Wu replied, and he opened the door of the Satomobile and stepped out into the fray of flashes of cameras.

_ I don’t know _ .

This is better this way. No labels. No strings attached. Just two affectionate friends who sometimes find each other in their beds. He followed Wu outside and looked around for any danger.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


“You don’t like firebending?”   
  


“I just… I don’t like it, it reminds me of my parents.”

“I’m sorry, Mako.”   
  
“It’s fine.”

A word that he said so many times.

“Then why do you do it?”   
  
“Because I have to,” he said, his voice almost broke. He can’t let it break, they’re out in public while Wu sipped on a smoothie. He wished that he was an earthbender like Bolin, a steady and rooted place into the ground. Instead he got destruction, a flame that hungered and took and took and took.

“If you could choose a different element, what would you choose?”

“Probably earthbending, like my brother.”

“I like firebending though,” Wu mumbled, “it’s kinda cool, how you can make a flame from nothing. It’s kinda like the fire I imagined in the fairytales my mum told me. Kinda like magic, I guess.”

He’s reminded him of Bolin. How he looked at the fire and saw something that wasn’t destructive that ruined lives, that burned and hungered. He looked at it like it was magic, something out fairytales, warm and soft.

“I’m sorry,” Wu said, “about your parents and what happened to them.”

He sounded so genuine. Not the stupid jokes and flirting that he woved in but sincere, like he cared. 

  
  
  
  
  
  


“I’m sorry for leaving you alone I thought that you would be safe and--”   
  


Wu hugged him out of the blue. He held him tight and didn’t want to let go. No one will see them here, in Wu’s bedroom which is all neat, tidy and cozy. There’s something about how they fit, how Wu slotted into his arms like a puzzle. It’s like something he has been looked for his own life.

  
And there it is, in the shape of a boy with brown skin and green eyes. 

“I thought I was gonna die without my bodyguard,” Wu said with a sigh, he buried his face deep into his chest, “I thought I was gonna die by Kuvira Mako!”

“No need to be dramatic Wu it’s fine.”

Silence. Then he heard soft sobs from Wu. He isn’t like that spoiled prince who wore priceless clothes and flirted with every girl that he saw. He’s vulnerable and fragile, he felt his clothes crinkle under the grip from Wu.

“I thought I was gonna die like my Aunt,” he whispered.

Before he would regret it he pressed a soft kiss right into the hair above Wu’s ear. He doesn't know what they are, there’s no labels. They aren't just two affectionate friends anymore who sometimes hook up, they’re past that. But they’re not in a relationship, it’s something in between.

And he doesn't know what it is. There’s no time to put labels.

So he hugged him tighter, wrapped his arms around his waist and they stayed like that for a while.

  
  
  
  
  
  


They ease up on each other after just a little bit after that. They flowed like waves and worked together so well that it seemed natural. They haven’t kissed each other or were taggled with each other in the bed in a while, but that’s fine. This, the simple gentle touches of Wu or how he rested his elbow on Mako’s shoulder is enough. 

Even during the meetings of how to take down Kuvira they seem to help each other out. Wu’s tips on how to evacuate and plan and Mako’s straight thinking seemed to help the decisions. After the meeting, Bolin hugged him so tight he thought he was gonna choke.

“Okay, okay you can let go of me now.”   
  


“Sorry it’s just… man I missed hugging you,” Bolin put him down and there’s a smile on his face.

They share a comfortable silence. Bolin crossed his arms while Mako grabbed for his scarf, but realised it wasn’t there, it’s back at Asami’s house, back with grandma.

“So how are you coping with Wu? Do you still want to bash your head in the wall?”

“No, no he’s… he’s not that bad, actually once you get to know him.”

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


_ That boy with emerald eyes _

_ Is right here _

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


“Mako, hey are you okay?”

They just got back from the meeting and Wuko already has a green face mask on and a purple robe. Mako sat on the dining table, as he stared out of the window and looked at the city. The streets. The alleyways. The buildings. He knows the paths and he knows how it snaked and where it leads. He knows the city like the back of his hand.

This is where he grew up. The city didn’t make him tough, strong. The city didn’t make him stone cold. He had to. 

But when he looked back to Wu something clicked, and everything fell apart and it revealed the emotions that he’s missed out on. Something stirred inside him, and the words wanted to get out as much as possible, to let it out. No more secrets and ghosts that loomed inside his chest. If he died in the war, it’ll spill ugly all along the floor like an oil spill.

It all started with him. Wu. That boy with green eyes that he saw across the street that made him feel funny things in his dead, cold chest. 

“This is gonna all come down to this, huh.”

“Yeah…” Wu said.

He couldn’t take it. So he stood up and kissed him like it was last time. Both of his hands rested on Wu’s neck, with one just at the back of his neck where he felt Wu’s hair there. He hasn’t kissed him in a long time, and he missed how soft his lips were, and how he tasted of something sweet like candy.

When he pulled away, there’s green goop on his hands. Mako felt heat on his cheeks, and he let the words roll out his tongue.

“I don’t know what we are but I just wanted to get this out before Kuvira arrives. So I’ll say it, I like you, I think, I don't know. I know that we were just hooking up but then we stopped a-and I don’t know what happened after that but I like you, Wu.”

Silence fell on them, Wu looked at him in awe.

“I just wanted to get it out,” Mako paused before he continued, “because maybe I’ll die, out there without telling you this. I… I didn’t have a good childhood and I’m not good at emotions and I don’t like firebending but one thing I’m sure of is that I like you.”

“You were that boy,” Wu said, “that boy in the street.”

Everything is into pieces. Mako has it all figured out and everything is fine, just as war is about to start. It might be too late. Mako never thought in his whole life he would have this moment, he thought he would die while he tried to save his brother out in the cruel streets. He never thought he would make it this far. Now here is, confessing his love like in some dumb, rom-com mover.

Everything that he faced led up to this. Wu, in a face mask with his eyes that glinted with something that’s soft and warm, but an undertone of melancholy, afraid this is the best they’ll ever have, just before a war.

“I was that boy in the street,” Mako mumbled, “you remembered me.”   
  
“Of course I would.”

And at that moment, he realised how much he liked him. He doesn’t know whether he’ll be able to see him again afterwards or if he can see them in the future. Mako doesn’t know whether they’ll be happy together, and he can imagine them in the early mornings, Wu just jokes while he cooked up eggs while Wu wrapped his arms around him and settled on the crook of his shoulder.

He doesn’t know whether he’ll experience that again.

But it doesn’t matter. He got it out. He’s here, in front of him and that’s all that matters.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


That boy with green eyes.

Is Wu.

And now everything went, a bright purple.

Then dark.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


“Mako… come back to bed.”

  
It’s six in the morning and Mako has to get up to go to the office. There's still peace in the early morning, with the sun just about to come up. It’s still dark out, there’s a hush in the world.

“I have to get to work.”

He felt Wu tug him. He looked back, and there he was with those sleepy eyes that shone from the lamp that he turned on. There’s something intimate and soft about this moment that he can’t put his finger on. Everything in him wanted to crawl back into bed and spend his day away in Wu’s arm, he wanted to run his fingers through his hair. 

Because when he was a child, he never thought he'd make it past eighteen. He never thought he would live past his teenage years and he thought he’ll die either from too much drinking or maybe dead in the end of an alleyway because his stubbornness got in the way. Now here he is, alive past eighteen and just woke up for work while Wu frowned at him.

“I have to go Wu.”

He felt Wu get up and hug him from behind, tight and said, “be careful okay! There’s bad guys and stupid dumb teenagers and dogs and--”

“I’ll be fine, Wu,” he whispered, “go back to bed.”

He’s so in love that it hurts. If he didn’t look at that boy with green eyes across the street, they wouldn’t be here. If he didn’t look at him for too long, they wouldn’t be here. He never thought he’ll have this normal, happy life with him.

He’ll think he’ll die from happiness. 


End file.
